History Rewritten
Notes: Written for the "non-songfic songfic" challenge at contrelamontre on LiveJournal. The idea is to include lyrics from a random playlist song (in this case, Irving Berlin's "Let's Face the Music and Dance") without making the musical nature of the lines apparent. This is a post-ep for Season Two's "Men to Boys."
This is how Alan wishes it had happened:
To start with, he takes her someplace else. Laurel's maybe, or D'Onofrio's. Somewhere with a dance floor, with candlelight shadows. Somewhere that isn't serving a fish special. She's beautiful, the dim flickering light caressing her cheekbones, highlighting the arc of her neck. He's charming, witty. She laughs in all the right places. He doesn't once pause to compare her to Tara.
He doesn't know the song when it comes on, but he sees the way her eyes widen slightly in recognition. The nostalgic smile that softens her lips. He disregards what he'd been about to say, touching his napkin to the corners of his mouth before dropping it on the table. Her look shifts to one of confusion when he gets to his feet.
"Let's face the music and dance," he says, as if he's just invented the idea.
She hesitates, but it's more out of surprise than disinterest. He waits, already anticipating the feel of her in his arms. After a moment she smiles, holds out her hand to him. He folds his hand around her slim fingers and leads her to the uncrowded floor.
They fit together exquisitely, of course, moving like they've trained for this all their lives. Even in this rewritten fantasy, he doesn't imagine this blossoming into a love for the ages, some kind of fairy tale romance sprung from the stars. He's content simply with their synchronicity. With the heat of her skin warming his hand through the thin silk of her dress.
"You do this very well," she tells him, and he can hear in her voice that this is a thing unexpected. He gets a small thrill from her wonder. It's been a while since he last felt particularly wonderful. "So," she says, leaning back just enough to meet his eyes, "who was the sweeping influence that brought Alan Shore to take dance lessons?"
He flashes back to a stuffy room, a group of uncomfortable teenagers. To the teasing outside of those walls, the awkwardness of being one of the few boys in his class with that unusual extracurricular. To the fair-skinned face of Ella Zwycki, always standing far across that polished floor. To remembered desperation, still thick on the back of his tongue.
"My mother," he says. "She said it would win me the hearts of countless girls."
"She was right," Sara says, tipping her head back as he bends in for a k-
No. He revises this, discarding this direction as too far into celluloid fiction. Rewinding the moment in his head, he answers her question again.
"Fiddlers," he says, and the soft breath of her laugh tickles his skin. "Very influential."
"Really."
Her amused skepticism is conveyed clearly in one raised eyebrow, and for once he doesn't hear the word tinged with an English lilt. He slides her into a gentle turn, pulls her a little closer. His cheek flirts with hers, and his world fills with the scent of soap and jasmine. "I find it's usually much easier to dance before the fiddlers have fled."
Her giggle in his ear makes the fine hairs on the back of his neck tingle. "Okay, I'll give you that," she says.
They finish the rest of the dance in silence, his mind blissfully empty of anything but the sensations of her nearness. When the song ends, she smiles up at him. "Thank you," she says, before turning to head back to their table.
He catches her wrist, stopping her motion. Glancing past her to their distant plates, their half-empty glasses, he knows he's not yet ready to give up this calm. This bubble of unaccustomed intimacy and mental silence. "One more," he says, slipping his hand back into hers. "Before they ask us to pay the bill."
And, because this is his fantasy, she agrees.
Alone in his private washroom, Alan twists the tap to stop the dark water filling the sink. He's avoiding his reflection in the mirror, has been since he came in here. He hasn't bothered to turn on the light, the only illumination filtering in through the open door from the office beyond.
He's trying very hard not to think about what really happened tonight. The absurd grandstanding, the mortification on Sara's face, her damning silence on the ride back here. The terrible feeling of dissociation as he listened to words falling from his own mouth, completely out of his control. Outlandish behavior even for a man who prides himself on outlandish behavior.
Inexcusable, really.
He loosens his tie and rolls up his sleeves, his jacket already discarded in the other room. His eyes still on the sink and not the mirror, he gives himself one more moment to indulge in the dream of his imagined evening. Perhaps she'll allow him another chance. He decides he'll ask. Even if "It can't hurt to try" still remains one of the great lies of mankind.
The water is icy cold when he scoops it up in his hands, and the shock of it hitting his face takes his breath away. But that's all right.
He doesn't have much energy left to breathe anyway.
end.